Hamilton employee busted for stealing $10k in rental fees

HAMILTON — Hamilton Township has busted a second employee in a month over missing money in a department already under scrutiny.

Police arrested Coleen Sides, a senior clerk in the township’s Department of Health, Recreation, Seniors and Veterans, was arrested on charges of theft Wednesday. Sides resigned after being charged, a release from the township said.

Sides, whose job included scheduling and processing facilities rentals at the Sayen House, was charged with taking the money meant for the rentals there, according to the release.

“Theft of public monies is never acceptable and will always be dealt with in the most severe fashion permitted by law,” Mayor Kelly Yaede said in the release.

Specifically, police charged Sides with Theft by Unlawfully Taking or Exercising Control Over Certain Movable Property. John Ricci, the township’s business administrator, said police are in charge of the case and will likely turn it over to the county prosecutor.

Ricci said they have found that the thefts, for around $10,000 in total, stretch back at least seven months. Sides, the clerk who handled facilities bookings would tell clients to pay in cash instead of check or money order, then falsify records to hide that, Ricci said.

Ricci said Sides has been on leave since last week. He said she has worked for the township since 2004, as an aide in the Division of Health. She was transferred to the Division of Recreation last year.

The investigation began last month and was not part of the township’s normal audit process, Ricci said. The release said the investigation was triggered by Sides’ supervisor in the department, who noticed the problems.

Two weeks ago, another employee in that department, former director of the Bromley Civic Center Gary Gray, retired after being confronted about $4,000 in missing township funds.

Sources who asked to remain anonymous said that those irregularities were found as part of the township’s audit process before police and the prosecutor’s office became involved.

The department, one of three being investigated by the township’s auditing firm, Hodulik and Morrison, has been without a director since last November. Cathy Tramontana was fired from her position after being named in the trial that brought down former mayor John Bencivengo.

The prosecution’s key witness, Marliese Ljuba, said she paid for trips and meals with Tramontana and her husband, the school district’s business administrator, Joe Tramontana, while she was the broker for the district.

Then-acting Mayor John Ricci said at the time he would only give the reason the township had given Tramontana for her firing.

“We have lost confidence in her ability to perform her duties and therefore she is being terminated,” he said.

Ricci said department directors have no contracts or tenure and serve “at the pleasure of the mayor.”

The auditing firm will also conduct a forensic audit on the Office of the Mayor and the Department of Community Planning and Compliance.

Former director of the department, Rob Warney was sentenced last week to 18 months in prison on one money laundering charge after admitting to being the middleman for a $5,000 bribe in the Bencivengo case.